The Hot Take: Firefox is my daily driver for sure.
Microsoft Edge will soon drop support for Manifest Version 2 (MV2), which means uBlock Origin will stop working in the browser. But Windows 11 users still have some browsing options that will support uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions.The Firefox account on X shared a simple message in response to an article about Edge ending support for certain extensions: "Firefox support for uBlock Origin is not going anywhere."Brave shared a longer message, which emphasized that "Brave will keep supporting uBlock Origin" and that Brave hosts uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions on its own servers. To enable MV2 extensions in Brave, you need to go to Settings > Extensions > Manifest v2 extensions.Brave also has a built-in ad blocker that's unaffected by the MV2 changes.Firefox runs on the Quantum browser engine, which is built specifically for that browser and is separate from Chromium. Brave is a Chromium browser. With both Chromium and non-Chromium options, people have a variety of ways to continue to use uBlock Origin.Why are some browsers stopping uBlock Origin from working?MV2 is an extension platform that developers can build upon. That older platform is being replaced by Manifest Version 3 (MV3), which is more secure and provides better performance than MV2.The transition from MV2 to MV3 brings improvements, but it also removes support for the WebRequest API, which lets ad blockers dynamically intercept and block requests before they load.The side effect of the transition is that uBlock Origin no longer works.Since uBlock Origin Lite is an MV3 extension, it does not dynamically intercept content before it loads.It's about more than blocking adsuBlock Origin no longer works on Google Chrome and will soon stop working on Microsoft Edge. (Image credit: Kevin Okemwa | Windows Central)In our recent poll about ad blockers, over 70% of respondents said they use uBlock Origin. Since that poll appeared in a piece about Edge ending support for uBlock Origin, the results are a bit self-selective, but still interesting. Even among those already interested in uBlock Origin news, 12% said they use uBlock Origin Lite.While uBlock Origin Lite blocks many ads, it does not process ads in the same way as uBlock Origin. The full version of uBlock Origin intercepts the ads entirely, which reduces bandwidth usage and improves browser performance.If you've ever loaded a web page and noticed that ads appear to be slowing things down, uBlock Origin would help in that situation but uBlock Origin Lite would not. Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.
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The Hot Take: Well now, lets see if they get back into a competitive place where they better compete and pull more people.
Firefox releases will soon get even closer together – but not ESR ones, which remain annual, with the next one due out soon. The change was announced last week on the dev-platform@mozilla.org mailing list by Mozilla’s director of engineering Sylvestre Ledru: “We are planning to move Firefox Desktop and Android from a 4-week release cadence to a 2-week release cadence starting in September 2026. “This will be an experiment… This does not mean that all work needs to ship twice as fast. Work that is not ready should not be rushed, and features can still take the time they need to bake. “The current target is to release Firefox 155 on September 1, 2026, instead of September 15 … “We will closely monitor how this change works in practice and adjust if needed.” The change is already visible in the upcoming Firefox Release Calendar. At the time of writing, it shows the current four-week cadence for Firefox 153 and 154, with Firefox 155 brought forward to September 1. From then on, it lists releases at roughly two-week intervals. This isn’t unprecedented. The last time Mozilla did it was over a decade ago. Google announced a very similar change for Chrome back in March, and The Register reported on it going to six-weekly releases in 2010 and then four-weekly ones in 2021. Brace for the impact of the next ESR In the meantime, Firefox 153 is nearly here: at the time of writing, it’s scheduled for Tuesday, July 21. Right now, the release notes are blank, but the beta release notes are more forthcoming. You can look forward to further improvements to PDF editing. Version 153 will be able to merge multiple PDF documents into one by a simple drag-and-drop in the PDF sidebar, and insert images into PDFs as new pages. It will also improve highlighting text in PDFs. The new version can generate QR codes for sharing web pages offline, such as in printed documents. It can verify and display the EU’s new Qualified Website Authentication Certificates, or QWACs for short. These are part of the new eIDAS legislation, which is a slightly convoluted acronym for “electronic IDentification, Authentication and trust Services”. Sounds cumbersome, but if it helps make the Wild West of the Web a bit safer, we’re all for it. Another security tweak is that extensions will lose local-file access by default. As we use one that relies on it - the excellent Multithreaded Download Manager - that's slightly concerning, although users will be able to grant the permission separately, so we'll see. If a tab is using your location, Firefox 153 will highlight this with a map-pin icon in the address bar. The last release could recognize a few keywords in the address bar to mute all sound: this function will get extended, with typed commands for picking colors from pages, and accessing experimental “Labs” features. Come back, Ubuntu Unity and your HUD, all is forgiven. There’s also experimental JPEG XL support. Pop-up video player controls will work better, and if you use Windows and have a compatible GPU and drivers, 153 will play HDR video. On macOS, Firefox supports the Fn+F keystroke for switching to full-screen mode – which means KeyboardControls.com has to update its description of the function. Firefox 153 will also be a significant release, because it will be the next ESR version: it will get security updates for at least 15 months, meaning until late 2027. (And maybe longer: Firefox 115 is still getting updates, and now will until March 2027.) In turn, that means that Firefox 153 is also the basis of the latest beta of the AI-free Waterfox fork, which recently integrated built-in ad blocking. ®
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The Hot Take: Nice, keep them ads at bay!
For a long time, Pi-hole was the go-to option for anyone that wanted to use DNS filtering on their home network. It is easy enough to set up on any old laptop, PC, or even a low-power Pi and then connect it to your network.
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The Hot Take: Interesting. Will it pull people back is the real question.
Microsoft has announced that Edge will be moving to a two-week release cycle for major versions of the browser, matching Chrome.
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The Hot Take: Interesting, might be worth a shot. Good way to keep funding alive for it and your main Brave version.
The Brave browser "has introduced Brave Origin, a stripped-down version of its browser that removes built-in monetization features like Rewards and other extras tied to its business model," writes Slashdot reader BrianFagioli"
The stripped-down browser is available either as a separate browser download or as an upgrade to the existing Brave install, unlocked through a one-time purchase that can be activated across multiple devices. The idea is simple on paper: pay once, and you get a cleaner, more minimal browsing experience without the add-ons that fund Brave's ecosystem. What makes the move unusual is the pricing model itself. While paying to support a browser is not controversial, charging users specifically to remove features raises questions about whether those additions are seen as value or clutter.
The situation gets even stranger on Linux, where Brave Origin is reportedly available at no cost, creating an uneven experience across platforms and leaving some users wondering why they are being asked to pay for something others get for free.
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The Hot Take: Of course because the only browser is Edge, M$ doesn't recognize anything else.
BrianFagioli writes: Mozilla is accusing Microsoft of stacking the deck against Firefox, arguing that design choices in Windows steer users toward Edge even when they explicitly choose another browser. According to Mozilla, parts of Windows still open links in Edge regardless of the default browser setting, including results from the taskbar search and links launched from apps like Outlook and Teams. Mozilla says this means Firefox often never even gets the opportunity to handle those links, which quietly shifts user activity back into Microsoft's ecosystem.
The company also points to Microsoft's aggressive rollout of Copilot as another example of platform power being used to push Microsoft services. Copilot appeared pinned to the taskbar, arrived automatically on many systems with Microsoft 365, and even received a dedicated keyboard key on some laptops. Mozilla argues that when the maker of the dominant desktop operating system promotes its own browser and AI tools at the system level, it becomes far harder for independent browsers like Firefox to compete.
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